Most cryptocurrencies are not anonymous, and when you use them, you’re essentially giving up your privacy. All the transactions made with cryptocurrencies of that nature are completely public, and anyone can view them on the blockchain.

Of course, there are people who would abuse this and governments, legislators, banks, financial companies and more have been looking into the identities of crypto users and all the transactions they make.

Some people don’t mind this loss of privacy, but what if you do? What can you do to prevent that? Do you just have to bow out and give up trading crypto altogether?

Luckily, that’s not the case. There are cryptocurrencies out there trying to be truly and completely anonymous to protect their users. One of the most prominent ones is PIVX.

What is PIVX?

This is a completely decentralized, open-source cryptocurrency focused on providing their users with complete and uncompromising privacy. The name stands for Private Instant Verified Transaction, and that neatly describes the goals of this crypto.

The currency originally forked out from DASH in February of 2016 and was originally called DNET (darknet), gaining its current name in January of 2017. The split happened because the team is now working on PIVX wanted to focus on the privacy aspect of the currency while the team that stayed with DASH wanted to push for the mass adoption of the currency.

All of this is something that you can tell by looking at what PIVX and DASH are today. DASH has become a wildly popular cryptocurrency while PIVX is still not as popular but had a surge in value and is the best cryptocurrency when it comes to protecting your privacy.

Currently, PIVX is even working on implementing the Invisible Internet Project or I2P, which would hide the IP address of every PIVX node by default. They’re also working on an encrypted chat system. Like DASH, they also have near-instant transmission times and minimal provisions.

What is the PIVX manifesto?

The manifesto, as you can see, focuses on a few core ideas, including privacy and freedom as the main goals. This is reflected in the way PIVX works and the technologies it employs, as you’re about to see.

What Makes PIVX Special and How Does it Function?

Since PIVX is an offshoot of DASH, what is it that makes it so different and unique? Well, the major thing that’s different with PIVX is the implementation of the Zerocoin protocol.

This protocol is essentially a form of zero-knowledge proof – it allows you to prove you have certain information but doesn’t reveal what the information is. The way PIVX implements it is as a coin-mixing service, which allows it to break the link between the receiver and the sender, while also hiding your PIVX balance.

The implementation used by PIVX is called zPIV. The way this all works is thusly – when you send PIVX anonymously, your wallet mints zPIV coins and deducts an equal amount of PIVX. The zPIV is then mixed with other zPIV of equal denomination, thus masking the sender-receiver connection. The zPIV are then sent to the address of the receiver where they are converted back into PIVX.

During each transaction, a new zPIV address, not connected to any previous transaction, is created for both the sender and the receiver. Due to all of this, there is no way to create a link between the sender and the receiver – the transaction is completely private.

The other thing that makes PIVX different is the way it rewards users – through Proof of Stake. Most other cryptocurrencies, including DASH, reward users through Proof of Work instead.

In systems that use Proof of Work, miners create new blocks thus securing the blockchain and solving cryptographic math problems. For this ‘work’, they are rewarded with coins. It’s the reason why coin mining requires a lot of computing power and electricity.

Proof of Stake, on the other hand, rewards users for keeping the currency in their wallets and not spending it. That’s their ‘stake’, so to speak. The more currency you have, the more rewards you get. This is akin to keeping money in a bank account and getting interest on it. Most PIVX users can expect a profit of 5% per year without needing to do any work.

If you stake enough PIVX, namely 10,000, you become what’s known as a ‘masternode’ – this allows for greater rewards and the ability to vote on proposals for PIVX governance. It’s like you’re a major stockholder.

The system works on a seesaw algorithm to ensure that there aren’t too many masternodes. The more there are, the lower the rewards and if more than 41.5% of PIVX nodes become masternodes, the rewards for staking nodes will become higher than those of masternodes.

What are the downsides of PIVX?

There are a few downsides to this currency. The masternode system means that it’s a ‘rich-get-richer’ type of deal, for a start. The Zerocoin protocol isn’t as private as it could be since it doesn’t hide the amount in the transaction. It’s also not hardware minable, so if you’re looking for a coin that is, PIVX is not for you.

You also can’t buy it directly with a credit card – you’ll have to buy bitcoin first and exchange it for PIVX.

However, other than that, there aren’t many negatives to it, and it seems it’s only going to get better and more popular with time.

The Final Word

PIVX is one the rise, and it’s one of the most popular and one of the best privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies that you can buy right now. If you value your freedom and privacy above all else, this is the right cryptocurrency for you.